UPCOMING EVENTS

Google Wallet just struck up a partnership with payment processor WePay to put its Instant Buy API in 200,000 e-commerce shops.

WePay is a payment processor that powers invoicing applications, marketplaces, and donation platforms like GoFundMe. Through its relationship with InvoiceASAP, it also provides payment processing for some 200,000 small and medium online businesses.

“This integration with WePay will now expand its reach and allow us to support small business owners through WePay’s hosted payment offering, making it easier for them to accept payments online and on mobile devices,” says Steve Klebe, Business Development, Payments for Google.

The integration will allow consumers to pay with their Google Wallet with a couple of taps both online and on mobile. It will also make Google Wallet more visible.

Right now the most visible wallet service on the web is PayPal. On many e-commerce sites PayPal appears alongside Visa and MasterCard. Google launched Google Wallet Instant Buy API in 2013, so that people would have more of an opportunity to use its wallet. Two years down the road it doesn’t have the pervasiveness that PayPal has.

With the launch of Apple Pay, digital payments have been jettisoned into the spotlight. In order to capitalize on that Google needs to make a case for its own payment solution — and fast.

Many merchants are not partial to a payment method. They’re happy to accept whatever consumers want to use — so long as it doesn’t cost them too much.

WePay CEO Bill Clerico is also agnostic. He says WePay is in the process of incorporating Apple Pay.